There are stages for a human to lose control of themselves and descend into madness. Macbeth is a cautionary tale written by William Shakespeare in 1606. The Tell-Tale Heart is a short horror fiction written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1843. These two texts explore the same idea of ​​guilt and descent into madness in two ways different, that of Shakespeare The play explores these two themes with the story of a nobleman falling into madness after killing the king. Poe's Tell-Tale Heart explored the narrator murdering his old man and then falling into a mind of guilt. These two texts will be compared by studying the purpose, literary techniques and stylistic features used by the authors. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606, when King James I and Queen Elizabeth I ruled England. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to please King James during the time of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, which was a failed assassination attempt on King James. Shakespeare took inspiration from this and represented King James in his play by adding a character called King Duncan who was a noble king that everyone respected. Shakespeare referenced the Gunpowder Plot in his play by having the main character Macbeth murder King Duncan. The intended audience when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth was King James, as it was inspired by and written for him, but can be watched by anyone interested in tragedy and murder. The Tell-Tale Heart was written in the mid-19th century by the American company. Poe was inspired to write The Tell-Tale Heart in 1843 when he read and heard about other stories about real-life tragedies. The audience is for everyone since it is just a short story, but it is aimed at people who like tragedies and gothic fiction. Macbeth and The Tell-Tale Heart share similar structural conventions. In both texts, the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart and Macbeth both fell into madness after committing a crime or, as both texts put it, "while performing the deed." In the play, Macbeth fell into madness after murdering a well-respected King Duncan for the throne and power. After committing this act, Macbeth began to feel a sense of guilt. He met his wife after murdering King Duncan and described her blood-filled hands as being capable of staining the entire ocean red. Macbeth then tried to wash his hands with blood, but he failed to clean his hands, which symbolized his feelings of guilt towards the crime he had committed. Although he had obtained what he so desired, to become king of Scotland, Macbeth still wanted more. His descent into madness began to generate suspense when he ordered the assassination of Banquo and his son, as the witches had foreshadowed that earlier in the play it would be Banquo's children who would take the crown from him. In Tell-Tale Heart, Poe's unnamed narrator was already in a state of madness and wanted to murder the old man because of "his eye." This drove the unnamed narrator to madness because the old man's eye was bothering him and he didn't want it anymore. After murdering the old man, cutting up his body and hiding it under the floorboards, the police were informed and came to inspect the murder. As the unnamed narrator calmly spoke to the police while sitting in a chair directly above where he had placed the old man's corpse, he began to hear the old man's heart beating. It was the.